UDWiki:Administration/Misconduct

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This page is for the reporting of administrator (sysop) misconduct within the Urban Dead wiki. Sysops are trusted with a considerable number of powers, many of which have the capacity to be abused. In many circumstances, it is possible for a sysop to cause considerable havoc. As such, users are provided this page to report misconduct from the System Operators. For consistency and accountability, sysops also adhere to the guidelines listed here.

Guidelines for System Operator Misconduct Reporting

The charge of Administrative Misconduct is a grave charge indeed. If misconduct occurs, it is important that the rest of the sysop team be able to review the charges as necessary. Any charge of administrative misconduct must be backed up with evidence. The clearest evidence that can be provided for administrative misconduct is a clear discrepancy between the relevant action log (deletion, block, or protection log) and the archives of the relevant administration service page, and this is a minimum standard of evidence admitted in such a tribunal.

Misconduct is primarily related to specific Administrator Services, not standards of behavior. As such, situations including verbal attacks by sysops, while frowned upon, do not constitute misconduct. Sysops on a wiki are in theory supposed to have no more authority than a regular user - they merely have a greater scope of power. Personality conflicts between sysops and regular users should be treated just as a personality conflict between two regular users. If, in the course of such a conflict, a sysop abuses their administrative powers by banning a user, blocking or deleting a page without due process, that is misconduct, and should be reported to this page.

There is, however, an exception to this rule - excessive bullying, or attempts to treat the status of sysop as a badge of authority to force a sysop's wishes on the wiki may also come under misconduct. Any accusations of this should come with just as clear evidence, and for such an action to be declared misconduct, there should be a clear pattern of behavior across a considerable period of time.

All discussion of misconduct should occur on this page, not the talk page - any discussion on the talk page will be merged into this page once discovered. Once a misconduct case has been declared closed, a member of the sysop team will mete out the punishment (if deemed necessary), and then move the case to the Archive.

Administrative Abilities

For future reference, the following are sysop specific abilities (ie things that sysops can do that regular users cannot):

• Deletion (ie complete removal, as opposed to blanking) of pages (including Images and any other page-like construct on this wiki), through the delete tab on the top of any deletable construct.
• Undeletion (ie returning a page, complete with page history) of pages (including any other page-like construct on this wiki (Images are not included as deletion of an image is not undoable), through the undelete tab on the top of any undeletable construct
• Protection of pages (ie removing the ability of regular users to edit or move a particular page), through the protect tab on the top of any protectable construct.
• Moving of pages (ie changing a page complete with the page's history to a different namespace).
• Warning users reported in Vandal Banning.
• Banning of Users (ie removing the ability of a specific user to edit the wiki), through the Block User page.
• Editing of Protected pages by any means.
• Research IP activity using the CheckUser extension.
• (Bureaucrats Only) Promotion (providing the above abilities) of User to Sysop/Bureaucrat status.

If none of the above abilities were abused and the case doesn't apply for the exception mentioned above, then this is a case for UDWiki:Administration/Arbitration or UDWiki:Administration/Vandal Banning.

Example of Misconduct Proceedings

Sysop seems to have deleted Bad Page, but I can't find it in the Archives of either the Deletion or Speedy Deletion pages. The Logs show a deletion at 18:06, October 24th 2005 by a System Operator, but this does not seem to be backed up by a request for that deletion. I would like to know why this is the case -- Reporter 13:42, 28 Oct 2005 (BST)

The deletion was asked through my talk page. I give my Talk page as proof of this. -- Sysop 13:42, 28 Oct 2005 (BST)

It looks like the page that was deleted did not belong to the requesting user, so you were in no position to delete it on sight. -- Reporter 13:42, 28 Oct 2005 (BST)

You know the rules, Sysop. All deletion requests have to go through the Speedy Delete page. Next time, please inform the user where they should lodge the request. This is a clear violation, will you accept a one-day ban as punishment? -- Sysop2 13:42, 28 Oct 2005 (BST)

I'm not liking it, but I clearly broke the rules, I'll accept the ban. I'll certainly remember due process next time... Sysop 13:42, 28 Oct 2005 (BST)

As punishment for failing to follow due process, Sysop has been banned for a period of 24 hours. This will be moved to the Archive shortly. -- Sysop2 13:42, 28 Oct 2005 (BST)

Before Reporting Misconduct

Due to a the growing number of Non-Misconduct cases popping up on this page the Administration Staff has decided to compile a basic summary of what has been viewed as Not Misconduct in the past. Please read over UDWiki:Misconduct and make sure that what you are reporting is in fact misconduct before filing a report here.

Cases made to further personal disputes should never be made here, harassment of any user through administration pages may result in vandal escalations. Despite their unique status this basic protection does still apply to Sysops.

Misconduct Cases Currently Under Consideration

User:Cyberbob240

In regard to this case, bob votes on the case he brought himself. I was always under the impression that excluding open and shut cases (eg bots) that this was not the done thing. I repeatedly asked bob for precedent only to get nothing but a mention from boxy saying its okay because several of the permaed users had the same thing done. This case had 0 in common with those cases, in fact it had sysops going both ways in voting.

In short a sysop cannot both create a case AND rule on it, excluding completely obvious open and shutters. I have repeatedly requested precedent but can only assume bob has none from his silence. Should this be declared misconduct my ban should be overturned as a draw.--xoxo 00:01, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Do you ever give it a rest? --Haliman - Talk 00:05, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Do you? J3D, in essence, is right. Sysops shouldn't rule on case's they brought up themselves. However, I do not believe this would have made much difference. Even without Bob's own ruling it would still be Vandalism, so this doesn't change much. In light of recent events, I doubt making this case was a good idea. Therefore I am going to urge Bob NOT to make another vandal case against J3D as some personal retaliation, because otherwise this shit will go on and on and on...--Thadeous Oakley 00:13, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Recall that addage, "Don't feed the trolls"? Yeah... but these Aussies have created a self-sustaining, thriving interdependent ecosystem wherein no one ever need go hungry. --WanYao 01:57, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Actually Thad the case in question had bob voting vandalism (invalid as per this case), nubis voting vandalism (cough) and boxy voting not vandalism. So now tell me this is irrelevant. I was banned in the dodgiest of possible circumstances.--xoxo 08:47, 12 September 2009 (BST)

You forgot DDR voting Vandalism. Though Nubis actually didn't vote Vandalism, he said he would withhold his vote for now. So yeah, umm. I guess overturning your ban is not something you likely achieve, but Sysops should not rule on their own brought cases. It doesn't make sense anyway, why rule? Since you brought the case yourself it's pretty obvious what your ruling would be, however if you don't rule, then the fact that you brought it doesn't count as a ruling on it's own in the past. Besides, a conflict of interest much? If you bring the case, then your involved and and ruling on a case that your involved in, yeah that pretty much is unfair right. Sysops could bring up a case and immediately rule vandalism after that giving the potential vandal in question a huge disadvantage.

HELL, let's say J3D would have been a sysops during this case. Would he be allowed to vote Not Vandalism on his own case? Well? But J3D isn't a sysops so that's completely unfair. Why don't we give normal users the ability to rule on their brought case's both as case bringer and potential vandal?--Thadeous Oakley 11:06, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Don't forget that your ban length wasn't negated as per your last banning case which was reversed, J3D. Better A/M your banning sysop for that, yeah? --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 12:37, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Actually i'm tempted to A/M you for noticing that and choosing to not mention it or decrease the ban time as per your personal vendetta.--xoxo 06:09, 14 September 2009 (BST)

Shut the fuck up, you parasite. I only remembered just then, and even if that was a lie there would be no way you could prove it, so fucking try me. Methinks you forgot to, else you would have eluded to it during the final ruling of your case, so stop blaming other people because you forgot your 'ace in the hole' and deal with it. --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 07:41, 14 September 2009 (BST)

I checked the A/VB archives from 2009 and 2008, and there's no sign of precedent that I could see.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 11:09, 12 September 2009 (BST)

I can't remember any specific case where a Sysop has tried to rule on a self-brought A/VB case... But I interpret it as the same precedence that was demonstrated early this year on A/M- should a sysop bringing a Misconduct case be able to have their vote counted? The precedence I specifically remembered was here (read down the bottom to Liberty's tally) where sysops that bring misconduct cases' votes can count... Can anybody give me a reason why this shouldn't apply to A/VB? --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 12:37, 12 September 2009 (BST)

I swear I remember that happening way back in the old days... I don't think it's illegal, but I do think it's considered a bit of a conflict of interest and generally avoided. Regardless, if this is such a one-sided ruling, why not just ask cheese or SA or another sysop to come in and vote; unless they're all bias...? o.0 Lelouch vi Britannia is helping make Ridleybank green_ and gives Achievements 15:46, 12 September 2009 (BST)

I'd throw this case as your initial precedent. Hagnat is found guilty of misconduct for "ruling on a case that he had a vested interest in". Although Hagnat did not rule on a case that he had made himself. Looking at the case and the VB page at the moment, there can clearly be seen to be an 'air of unfriendliness' between J3D and Cyberbob, I could see it easily argued that he had a 'vested interest' in gaining J3D another escalation and closer to a another wiki break.

The problem with voting on cases that you bring yourself is that you are an involved party already. Previously, and skimming through the misconduct archives it is clear that in the past sysops voluntarily recused themselves from cases, so such a policy was not needed. Also any cases where there was not immediate vandalism misconduct case were brought against any sysop automatically issuing warnings/bans and then noting this on A/VB. Looking at the current VB page shows this to be the apparent norm now, either through not knowing or another reason by the current sysops.

We must remember that the person who set the precedent in misconduct cases (Nubis) may not have been acting in the best interests of the wiki, depending on the ruling of the case below.

Finally, do we really want sysops ruling on cases they have brought themselves? Would we be happy with any criminal case where the victim or prosecuting attorney was also allowed a seat on the jury? Creating this precedent that sysops may rule on cases they bring does not elicit faith from users regarding the impartiality and suitableness for sysop status. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 16:54, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Exactly, this simply shouldn't be allowed.--Thadeous Oakley 16:59, 12 September 2009 (BST)

The idea was that the sysop shouldn't be "punished" for being the one that brings the case to A/VB. If a regular user had posted it that sysop would still be able to vote one way or the other on it. It's just obvious that their vote is Vandalism. Please rewrite everything that Nubis did on here. That is great for the lolz.-- #99 ^DCC 17:16, 12 September 2009 (BST)

The simple response is the rhetorical question of "If it was such obvious vandalism, why did the sysop in question not wait for another user to bring the case?" Quite simply allowing involved parties to vote on the appraisal of whether or not such a case is vandalism is a dubious precedent. Family members of victims may not serve on juries, nor may any judge sit on any case which someone can demonstrate he has an interest in. This wiki should be no different in these regards. If J3D committed such a heinous and clearly bad faith edit that Cyberbob had to bring the case, why is his vote needed to ensure a vandalism ruling? -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 17:22, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Your analogies are terrible and so is your strawman. Merely bringing a case does not make you involved in it (certainly not to the extent where you could be said to have a "vested interest" in it), and not every case is "hurfadurf HEINOUS AND CLEARLY OBJECTIVELY BAD FAITH". Cyberbob  Talk  17:30, 12 September 2009 (BST)

I'm curious, do you believe that sysops should be allowed to vote in cases they bring? Or that there is nothing in policy to prevent them? -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 17:47, 12 September 2009 (BST)

The guidelines explicitly allow sysops to vote on cases they bring. Read what I post, please. As for my opinion, I think they should be able to vote on cases they bring except where there is a clear consensus amongst the other sysops that they should not. I really can't see how a situation where sysops being allowed to rule on cases they bring but if other sysops turn up and disagree with their ruling suddenly losing all say in the matter could ever work. Cyberbob  Talk  17:58, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Two points. One, the guidelines specifically give sysops the ability to rule on cases they've brought (I quoted the relevant line in J3D's A/VB case). Two, it's terribly amusing to see everyone dancing around the metric shittonne of cases where sysops have brought them and ruled on them as well, often in the same edit, with the use of the word "vote" instead of "rule" (if one of those cases becomes contentious the sysop that brought the case is counted as having a "vote" anyways so that doesn't hold water anyway), but the guidelines don't discriminate.
Sorry, but if you want to make this illegal you're going to have to go through A/PD. Cyberbob  Talk  17:07, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Also that Misconduct case of Hagnat's has nothing to do with the situation here and I'll thank Iscariot not to try and muddy the waters further with his ridiculous attempts at shoehorning as well as at pinning me down as having a vested interest in the case. I do not rule on A/VB cases based on emotion, thank you very much. Cyberbob  Talk  17:22, 12 September 2009 (BST)

I believe them to be related in spirit due to the discussion that resulted in the majority ruling of misconduct, as I have stated. "if one of those cases becomes contentious the sysop that brought the case is counted as having a "vote" anyways so that doesn't hold water anyway" - Perhaps you'd provide the links to three such A/VB cases that fit this criteria to enlighten us. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 17:47, 12 September 2009 (BST)

"In spirit" is one of the most done-to-death "arguments" on the whole goddamn wiki. As for your precedent request, it's a practice which has been going on for pretty much forever; I refuse to work just to satisfy your fetish for LINKZ. Cyberbob  Talk  18:07, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Just so we all know where we stand (also because I know how much people love not following instructions to read things on other pages then continuing to post as before), this is the part of the guidelines I am referring to:

When a User May be Warned or Banned

Furthermore, system operators are specifically given the ability to both report and warn/ban a user.

There is no mention of a delineation between "voting" and "ruling", because such a distinction does not exist except as part of J3D's desperate attempts to have his ban revoked and hurting anyone/everyone who he thinks he has a chance of "getting back at". You can argue 'durrrp conflict of interest judges dont go in teh jury' until the cows come home but ultimately you're just wasting your breath. Cyberbob  Talk  18:17, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Same page:

"System operators, as trusted users of the wiki, are given the right to make judgment calls and use their best discretion on a case-by-case basis. Should the exact wording of the policies run contrary to a system operators' best good-faith judgment and/or the spirit of the policies, the exact wording may be ignored. "

This is one of those cases in which the spirit may be contrary to the wording of the policy. This is why sysops will vote on this case, and why appropriate arguments have been made. You'll notice there's also nothing to stop you ruling Not Vandalism or Not Misconduct on cases against yourself either by policy, but people have be reprimanded for this in the past. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 18:26, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Really wish you'd stop using "nothing to stop you from doing X" as an argument when the guidelines here specifically allow. You're doing that shoehorning thing again. Cyberbob  Talk  18:34, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Not misconduct - unless he was voting purely on a case where it was Cyberbob vs. J3D, he has every right to a ruling. If you ruled out every sysop that has an interest in the case, none of the A/VB actives would be eligible, because J3D has created idiot misconduct cases against pretty much every one of them (see below). Template:GTIOFW -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 02:41 13 September 2009 (BST)

Not Misconduct - I don't specifically agree with this from a user point of view- but there remains to be seen a guideline that actually prohibits a sysop from voting in a case that they brought. In terms of Iscariot's question of "If it was such obvious vandalism, why did the sysop in question not wait for another user to bring the case?", no user, lest a sysop, should be obliged to not report vandalism for such political reasons, and such a mentality is counter-productive to the wiki. As a user I see the points of many of the above member's inputs, but without policy or precedent (and I mean proper precedent, not grey interpretations from A/M cases), there is nothing to say that a sysop shouldn't be able to rule on a case they've brought, lest vote. If you don't like it, I suggest someone make an amendment through A/PD to stop this happening. I'll even help out. But in the meantime, what Bob did is technically within his powers and the precedence is being set, now. --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 15:07, 13 September 2009 (BST)

Nubis (3)

We finally have an explanation for Nubis' inconsistent arguments and (I quote myself) "come once a month and fuck up something" attitude. Here DCC announces that he's had control of Nubis' account for at leased a year, since Grim's sysops trust stunt. This is marginally confirmed by checkuser, which, as far back as the logs go, have confirmed that a majority of their edits have come from the same IP. This is a breach of sysop trust, yada yada, but not technically a problem if the power of multiple accounts isn't abused.

However, this, brought up by Animesucks, is multi-voting, which is A/VBable regardless. Rather than take this to A/VB, I'd like the sysops to first make up their mind on whether DCC and Nubis are the same person, based on the evidence. If they are the same person then there isn't anything that can be done by his multi-account abuse except the vandal escalation as per the above vote, and this A/M case will be not misconduct. If they are different people with the access to the one account, Nubis has been in breach of sysop conduct by allowing other unqualified users use his account. --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 09:11, 10 September 2009 (BST)

I am as about as sure as is humanly possible that they are the same person. Cyberbob  Talk  11:25, 10 September 2009 (BST)

Yarp. As bobs. -- Cheese 11:32, 10 September 2009 (BST)

Didn't Nubis also claim to be Sir Argo too? Everyone took it as a joke (I know I did...) but did anyone check? --Honestmistake 12:01, 10 September 2009 (BST)

Nubis is not SirArgo. Are we going to start getting paranoid about literally every "hahaha im actually [user] guys" joke people make now? Cyberbob  Talk  12:06, 10 September 2009 (BST)

Not getting paranoid... I merely mention it as an interesting aside. In any event I am sure Argo will be along soon to tell us he is not really a cat :) --Honestmistake 17:01, 10 September 2009 (BST)

I'm cyber bob too. -- #99 ^DCC 19:39, 10 September 2009 (BST)

PS Nubis is back. And where is the misconduct in this case? -- #99 ^DCC 19:39, 10 September 2009 (BST)

Hmm. I'd actually believe that.--SirArgo ^Talk 02:58, 11 September 2009 (BST)

That's impossible - I can't be Imthatguy and DCC at the same time! Cyberbob  Talk  03:02, 11 September 2009 (BST)

Well, whoever you are, I am agreeing with you a lot lately and it makes me wonder why. But hey, I'm agreeing with you to the point that I voted for you, so things are good whatever they are. This whole place is tripping me out.--SirArgo ^Talk 03:05, 11 September 2009 (BST)

Fucking mind games. I agree, IP details strongly suggest that they're the same person... Nubis has gone on vaction and blocked himself for a month, and neither he or DCC have said anything more.
Even if they are the same person, I'd suggest that it's still misconduct, because in that case Nubis failed to combine the DCC vandal data with his own as known alt account data should be -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 12:42 10 September 2009 (BST)

(Nubis is a girl.)

The A/VD thing is not misconduct IMO. It's certainly a second layer of vandalism, but it's a situation that would be relevant to any user with a "secret" alt - sysop or not. Cyberbob  Talk  12:56, 10 September 2009 (BST)

Regular users with secret alts don't have a duty to keep A/VD records accurate, or to enforce the escalation system -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 13:12 10 September 2009 (BST)

That's pretty tenuous. Cyberbob  Talk  13:19, 10 September 2009 (BST)

Didn't we demote Jed when it looked like he was sharing accounts? Sharing accounts is misconduct in itself, as it's a serious breach of the trust placed on a sysop. Linkthewindow  Talk  03:57, 11 September 2009 (BST)

DCC has been IP checked back in Feb 2008, indicating that they weren't sharing IPs at the time, or it would have been discovered then. That suggests a few possibilities.

• They are one, but were more careful about their IPs in the past,
• They were two separate posters, and one of them gained control of both accounts somehow,
• They have always been separate posters, but DCC has somehow managed to post from Nubis' IP lately,

-- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 13:12 10 September 2009 (BST)

*They have always been separate posters, but DCC has somehow managed to post from Nubis' IP lately, I like the way you think.-- #99 ^DCC 19:36, 10 September 2009 (BST)

Do we dare put Nubis up for ban aversion aswell? ;) In seriousness, I also tend to agree with the theory that they are the same person behind two accounts- though in practice, they often exhibited plenty of behaviour that suggests that they were different users... Things like PT requests and such that could easily have been streamlined via Nubis (and aren't unlike his edits anyway), and what would Nubis' reasoning be for lying about this alt fiasco anyway? He would be in more hot water if they were actually two separate users... I just don't understand fair Nubis... --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 13:43, 10 September 2009 (BST)

Actually, scrap that... After reading the talk page again, I'm fairly convinced that they were two separate users until the 'real' Nubis walked away and DCC received control of both accounts, after the "sysop trust" event... Basically, I'm going with DCC's story, it seems plausible, as per Boxy's 2008 checkuser evidence and the fact that Nubis' behaviour changed readily around the midmonths of 2008 onwards. It explains why they are technically the same person now, whilst it explains Boxy's checkuser evidence, and it explains DCC's own explaination, as well as other user's accounts of Nubis' changing behaviour over the past year. --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 15:05, 10 September 2009 (BST)

Thank me later--CyberRead240 16:01, 10 September 2009 (BST)

I haven't got time to deal with this at the moment, and given the confusion over who has control of the account, I am temporarily demoting Nubis until we work out what is going on, and if the account is now secure. Nubis will be reinstated as soon as we can be sure of what went on, and that he has exclusive control of the account -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 21:48 10 September 2009 (BST)

Jinkies

Looks like you have a mystery on your hands, gang. I'll gather a few things of note and see if that helps. Let's assume that they are two different people and somehow DCC got a hold of Nubis's password, and work from there.

DCC wiped Nubis's talk page, and has claimed to be Nubis since Grim's UDWiki:Open Discussion/System Operators, which ones do you trust, which was back in May of 2008. This means that DCC has been in charge of Nubis's account for quite some time. A check of DCC's contributions show a sudden absence around the middle of May of 2008, and doesn't return until September. Nubis's contributions on the other hand, is very inactive before the same time in May, and suddenly becomes very active. So much so, that it explains why DCC has no contributions during that time period. DCC is far too busy working on Nubis's account that s/he doesn't have time to post under DCC.

This explains the noted change in Nubis's demeanor and posting habits. You can see the similarity with DCC's flurry of edits on developing suggestions here, and repeated on Nubis's account here. You can also see that Nubis was very active in October of 2008, while DCC stopped posting after the Grim Misconduct case became sysop only and didn't post again until November 12th. Again, this seems to be due to the fact that Nubis was very involved with the wiki during the month of October. Something else of interest is that Nubis refers to DCC as being female on January 12, 2009. Above, Cyberbob mentions that Nubis is female.

Assuming that DCC picked up Nubis's account at the start of the flurry of activity (May 16th, 2008), that would mean the following sysop actions were made by a non-sysop on a sysop account:

• All of the move actions since May of 2008.
• All of the block actions since May of 2008.
• All of the protect actions since May of 2008.
• All of the deletion actions since May of 2008.
• Archived the UDWiki:Administration/Policy Discussion/Sysop Promotion Guidelines Overhaul 0.2 policy on May 24th, 2008.
• Ended voting on Suggestion:20080505 Nail Guns and Nail Gun Clips on May 25th, 2008.
• Tons of rulings and administration of A/VB and A/M cases, starting here. I'd list them all, but that would take a long time. A simple browse through Nubis's contributions from then on should show how many times Nubis has ruled on A/VB and A/M cases. I'll only list the A/VB cases that involve DCC.
• Nubis effectively ruled on DCC's A/VB case on October 9th, 2008. You can see how the case ended.
• Nubis reduced DCC's vandal escalation by two steps, despite there being far less than 500 edits since May 11 of 2008, when DCC's last vandal deescalation occurred.

Also, to add to the case that Anime pointed out on Nubis's talk page, you can see that there are two other cases where DCC was used as a sock on voting: The UDWiki:Administration/Policy_Discussion/Autoconfirmed_Group_Trial and UDWiki:Administration/Bureaucrat_Promotions/February_2009.

Prior to May of 2008, Nubis is barely involved with the wiki, but after May is suddenly very involved. It is reasonable to assume that Nubis stopped caring about the wiki, and gave the account away. Otherwise, there would likely be a number of password attempts on the Nubis account. At the very least, judging from Nubis's contributions in 2006 to May of 2008, Nubis had a habit of coming to the wiki every six to eight months. In my opinion, if Nubis was unaware of DCC's attempt to take over the account, then it is likely it would have come up before now, and not over a year later. However, if you give Nubis the benefit of the doubt, then I imagine that all of the above information would be enough to permaban DCC and his alts (if any). --Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 22:40, 10 September 2009 (BST)

Awwww, but what about all the good things that Hitler did? -- #99 ^DCC 02:39, 11 September 2009 (BST)

Nice post, Akule. At the moment, there are one of two possibilities for this - Nubis and DCC are collaborating to stir up as much shit as possible (then demote, as it's very inappropriate conduct for a sysop,) or Nubis gave his account to DCC (demote, as the account's security has been compromised, and account sharing shouldn't be tolerated.) I just don't see an "account hacking" as too likely - ether Nubis has been careless with his password, or DCC has the skillz required to hack the wiki. Neither seem too likely. Linkthewindow  Talk  03:54, 11 September 2009 (BST)

It is quite obvious what happened. DCC got Nubis' account off of Nubis, but he realized his big troll was a huge fail and finds himself possibly having both the accounts perma banned. This is something he didn't expect, he expected Nubis to be banned but not himself. Now he is making up a story about DCC being an awesome hacker who hacked Nubis account in order to save the Sysop status so he can AT LEAST stay on the wiki in some aspect, as it is the only way to salvage the situation. It is the epitome of fail troll.--CyberRead240 05:17, 11 September 2009 (BST)

And I am saying that the real Nubis gave his account to DCC around may 2008, and the real Nubis is either fucked off completely, or is now back to edit for a while so that the IPs are different until his sysopship is reinstated, and then for a bit after, until the dust settles. If Nubis gets back into Sysop you know itl happen again.--CyberRead240 05:22, 11 September 2009 (BST)

HAHAHA! I await the day that Kevan announces that the same 20 guys with 500 accounts each run this whole fuckin joke.--

| T | BALLS! | 05:59 11 September 2009(BST)

***UNIT #216 HAS GONE ROGUE//ELIMINATE UNIT #216*** Cyberbob  Talk  06:13, 11 September 2009 (BST)

Sorry, but I've hardly got the time for one account, let alone 500 :/ Linkthewindow  Talk  06:28, 11 September 2009 (BST)

What's amusing is that DCC as Nubis (or whatever the theory is) was much more involved and contributed more to the wiki than the REAL Nubis ever did. Also, Akule, your ideas are way off on this "hacking the password with many attempts". Who said the wiki was the first account I took from him? Some people are retarded enough to have related accounts with the same passwords. -- #99 ^DCC 18:42, 11 September 2009 (BST)

I noticed that you contributed quite a bit to the wiki. Particularly the image categorizations. As for hacking, I don't recall saying that you did. I just mentioned that if you didn't get the password from Nubis, it would have been more likely that you would have effectively bashed out the password, and thus the logs would have reflected that. No, I agree with your statement on Nubis's page. It is far more plausible to me that Nubis got tired of the wiki, and when the whole "Who do you trust the sysops" bit came out, you thought it would be funny to pretend to be Nubis and s/he gave you the password. That is the much more believable scenario, and would fit with what I remember of Nubis's general demeanor. --Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 19:13, 11 September 2009 (BST)

Pssst, Nubis is lazy and only had/has one password for most things (UD zombie and wiki). Actually, maybe that's more like stupid which I am sure most of you will agree with. Guess the UD password (which isn't "traced") and try it on the Wiki. I also found on of his other alt accounts on here that no one knows about with the same PW. -- #99 ^DCC 02:50, 14 September 2009 (BST)

how about this

they lived together. Each logged in to a computer never checking to see who was loggedin. They break up. Out of kindness dcc unbans nubis so nub can take the account back because nubs wasn't the bad guy here. Clearly dcc was the psycho bitch. Or this could be way off base too because who the hell meets peole from the Internet? --N 06:41, 11 September 2009 (BST)

The alternatives are endless. I favour the idea that nubis has actually gone on vacation (a day or two ago), and DCC (a RL friend) has access to his 'puter and account and is doing what goons do when presented with such an opportunity...
All of which makes no difference to what we need to decide, whether the Nubis account should loose sysop status or not because he either allowed others access his account (either willingly, or not), or he is actively participating in a deception (DCC should be dealt with elsewhere) -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 16:16 11 September 2009 (BST)

If that is indeed the case, then Nubis is in violation of reducing DCC's vandal escalation in violation of the guidelines. --Akule ^{Maker of fine, hand-crafted UDWiki sass since 2006 -- Akule School's back in session™} 19:17, 11 September 2009 (BST)

Are you saying that I didn't have the required edits? Because there was a huge discussion on Nubis' page about the history wipe, Katthew/Iscariot, and all that that led to an A/M case by Iscariot. The de-escalations were allowed because of the wipe.-- #99 ^DCC 03:52, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Tell us DCC, what is your latest claim? It was all a fabrication, and you never had access to Nubis' account? You had control for months, but Nubis is back now? You still have control of it? What?
Not that anything you would say would have any credibility... but just FTR -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 04:02 12 September 2009 (BST)

I don't have control of that account and I never did. Nubis (and briefly Katthew, actually) lived with me during the height of The Dead. How the fuck else do you think we were able to coordinate the hordes so well? Magic? We lived together and one of the 3 of us was online all the time due to our schedules. Hence, the matching IP. (if anyone had checked Katthew's back then you would have found this out. But we were all on our best behavior and kept our collective noses clean because we knew it would be bad for all three if one got in trouble. Notice there was a point when even Katthew stopped trolling before she moved out and gave up UD completely? -- #99 ^DCC 22:29, 13 September 2009 (BST)

Actually the de-escalations were not allowed, the sysop in question was found guilty of misconduct. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 17:43, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Not allowed to be performed by that sysop, not not allowed to be performed at all. Cyberbob  Talk  01:53, 13 September 2009 (BST)

Not allowed period, though this only applies to the section where DCC is talking about enough good faith edits to de-escalate a user. The case is here, Katthew's circumstances are not discussed in any detail during the case and no precedent is made regarding de-escalations as DCC is apparently claiming. The case in question brought a single precedent, users may not be de-escalated before the proscribed minimums in policy, for a sysop to do so is misconduct. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 02:02, 13 September 2009 (BST)

You seem to be forgetting that HUGE ASS conversation on Nubis' talk page about de-escalations specifically. But that's typical for you.-- #99 ^DCC 22:31, 13 September 2009 (BST)

I see you've volunteered to go through DCC's contribs with a fine tooth comb to check for the bad faith edits and determine whether there are any two with 250 good faith ones between them. Cyberbob  Talk  02:07, 13 September 2009 (BST)

We require a date, and therefore a ruling first. When the appropriate date is judged by this misconduct case, that we are taking the sysop account to be hacked from, I shall begin to go through the histories. This means, rule, get consensus and the appropriate assurances (I hate doing work for nothing, see what happened when I tried to fix the historical groups? Boxy got misconducted for that) and I'll do you your breakdown. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 02:14, 13 September 2009 (BST)

My header

I get my own header, because it breaks up the walls of text and because I'm special :p

What we have here is a situation with three possible explanations:

1. They are two separate people. This would mean that this is one mighty troll job. Concerning DCC, this would only result in a single escalation (for impersonating a sysop) and only the possibility of a single misconduct ruling against Nubis. This would mean the question would have to be asked by the ruling sysop team as to whether or not it is acceptable conduct for a sysop, who should hold the trust of the user base, to cause this level of drama and potential worry around the wiki. Grim was demoted and banned for six months for enduring conduct unbecoming a sysop.
2. They were two separate people, but somewhere along the lines one user has left and the other has been given their account. What it is here is misconduct for the Nubis account, by releasing sysop only information to a non-sysop, and effectively a vandalism spree for the duration by DCC for every access of the Nubis account. This would be a demotion for Nubis under the Inactivity Policy and escalations for every type of offence committed. Give me a shout if you need these for A/VB DDR. Also, the actions for number three would immediately apply as well.
3. The accounts were always controlled by one person. That makes it an Amazing level troll job, and although owning, and indeed operating two accounts as separate entities is not illegal, operating them in concert most certainly is. Akule has demonstrated where this is the case. This is then a sockpuppet case, in such cases the puppet is banned and all warnings for the previous account are transferred to the main along with any owing from the conduct of that alt. As DCC is still commenting on this and other cases, it is fair to say that this is the main account, the Nubis account should be banned and any owing or future punishments transferred to DCC's record.

There are a couple of points of note that I'm interested in:

Cheese, Cyberbob - How long have you been aware that these accounts have been run by the same person?

Why have we only got one ruling on this case yet sysops have been commenting on this and other cases? Boxy has excused his immediate participation, but Cyberbob appears on his own case and not here?

Has anyone brought this to Kevan's attention? Given the apparent reluctance of the sysops to dive in here, his Owner Privilege ruling would end this quickly.

Also you might want to inform him due, regardless of how Nubis and Conndraka used to harp on about American law, to British statutes on the protection of information of citizens under various data protection legislation. I'm attempting to contact various people I knew at university who have since passed the bar for clarification, hopefully it'll be a non-issue and he'll be fine. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 17:43, 12 September 2009 (BST)

I learned about this at the same time as everyone else and I haven't voted here because I haven't made up my mind (surely understandable considering how complicated everybody's making this?) as to which bits apply to A/M and which ones apply to A/VB. Also what's with your worries about protection of information? Nobody's giving out specific locations tied to IPs or anything, are they? Cyberbob  Talk  17:49, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Perhaps you'd care to share with the group if you've made up your mind. Actually, as I understand things in the UK, liability could be a result of unauthorised individuals having access to the information, whether or not it is formerly disseminated or not. A person's location is consider privileged information, whether DCC made this public or not is not the issue, the data has be inadequately been protected as DCC did not pass the proscribed procedure for gaining access to it. Hopefully I'm completely wrong about all of this and there's a nice clear statue that shows that this has nothing to do with Kevan at all. I am concerned for him though, hence why I've asked if he has been informed, as a person who runs many sites and is heavily involved in the digital industry he might know better than I and it could be a storm in my own teacup. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 17:58, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Also, no "Welcome back Iscariot, I've missed you."? I'm hurt :'( -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 17:58, 12 September 2009 (BST)

Here's a thought, why don't you go fuck yourself? I'll make up my mind when I'm good and ready, thanks. As for the IP shit... urghsdadfdavs. Cyberbob  Talk  01:54, 13 September 2009 (BST)

You do realize that you can check and see how many times "nubis" accessed checkuser information to determine if there really was an abuse right? That's what they did for the J3D case... But don't mind me throwing in logic here. Continue with your pitchforks and torches. It's good for lolz.-- #99 ^DCC 22:21, 13 September 2009 (BST)

vote

I'm going to move this forward- it is silly to see speculations run scarce as all the evidence has already been laid out by several users. Most of the sysops have their own opinion already, I'm for calling a vote. I would like to see the opinions of the sysops to see with which this matter should be dealt. --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 17:03, 11 September 2009 (BST)

Misconduct

1. - And a demotion. I consider Nubis' account insecure and after the last week's activity I can't vouch for the account to behave in the trustworthy manor that is expected of a sysop. --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 17:03, 11 September 2009 (BST)
2. The best case scenario, in terms of Nubis' guilt here, is that he had his password stolen without his knowledge. If this is the case, then we still have to treat this as serious enough to warrant demotion, because we can no longer tell who is in control of the account -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 23:41 12 September 2009 (BST)
3. I hesitate to call it "Misconduct", as don't really know how DCC obtained Nubis' account, but yeah - it is not acceptable to have an account that has access to CheckUser running around when the identity of the person behind it has been called into serious question. Demoteplz. Cyberbob  Talk  02:22, 13 September 2009 (BST)
4. Pretty much as Bob. When we can't be reasonably sure of an account's identity or security, it should be demoted at once. Linkthewindow  Talk  05:13, 13 September 2009 (BST)

end

I'm going to close this as not specifically Misconduct, but definitely a continuation of the Demotion that Boxy brought upon Nubis' account whilst its security was being guranteed. Nothing personally in relation to either Nubis or DCC, but since we can no longer vouch for the security of Nubis' account, it seems in the best interests that its sysop status be witheld. --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 15:12, 13 September 2009 (BST)

I think a certain date needs to be applied here, the Nubis account was up to all sorts of things, some of them will no longer apply. DCC states from after the Grim coup, a definitive date with the final ruling would be useful. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 16:02, 14 September 2009 (BST)

I'm also a little confused as to how you can call this "Not Misconduct" when, so far, the voting has been unanimously for Misconduct. And yet, even as you are calling it Not Misconduct, you're stripping Nubis of their sysop powers. All this without without a formally conducted and concluded Misconduct verdict or Vandalism case against Nubis.

As far as I can tell, boxy's demotion was a stopgap security measure meant to keep the situation under control until A/M and/or A/VB cases could be brought forward and decided upon. I didn't see it as a permanent demotion. I think you guys need to make an actual decision, one way or the other: is Nubis going to be stripped of their sysop powers. Or not. And do it by the book, i.e. Misconduct or Vandalism or both. --WanYao 16:55, 14 September 2009 (BST)

Nubis is going to lose its powers for good it looks like, but I think it's not being ruled Misconduct because it wasn't the real Nubis performing Misconduct, or vandalism, but rather him being a moron in losing it/his account in the first place. So calling it Misconduct on his part makes no sense. The only way it's Misconduct is if Nubis knew that DCC was using his account and he did nothing to alert anyone to the powers being misused. And we can never prove that. It's just plain old stupidity on the real Nubis' part.--SirArgo ^Talk 17:09, 14 September 2009 (BST)

(conflicted) I stand corrected... "not specifically Misconduct"... But which is it? Either Nubis was negligent (at best... at worst, she was actively complicit in the deceit) and thus has lost "trusted user" status either way. Or Nubis is innocent of technical wrongdoing and should be reinstated as sysop as soon as their identity can be confirmed (assuming that's even possible).

imnsho there's no way to get around the fact that Nubis was either grossly negligent at best, or actually complicit in the sabotage of their account at worst. Either way, I don't think the account is "trustworthy" anymore. That's not my decision to make. But it is your job (that is, you the sysops) to make that decision.

And I'm still not quite sure how someone can be stripped of sysop powers without a Misconduct ruling... if this is possible, please explain it to me because I am apparently ignorant. --WanYao 17:17, 14 September 2009 (BST)

Edit conflictI agree, the account should not get its sysop status back. But the reason I did not call it negligence was because we have plenty of inactive sysops. That's one reason why people voted in A/RE. I will say it is likely that Nubis would still be inactive now had this event not shown up, but I think that if he had been naturally inactive he would have probably been demoted long ago for inactivity.--SirArgo ^Talk 17:21, 14 September 2009 (BST)

Also, inactivity is one example of how sysops can lose their powers without Misconduct. What we have here is an event that maybe has happened once before with the whole Amazing fiasco so it's a fairly special circumstance. I know very little about that event and I freely admit it, so maybe we should look back on how that was handled and work from there for this case.--SirArgo ^Talk 17:23, 14 September 2009 (BST)

You're exactly correct about the inactivity thing, Argo. But no one has moved to have Nubis demoted for inactivity. Other than boxy's (likely) stopgap measure demotion, nothing to date has been done about this. That's what I'm doing here: pushing to get something conclusive, one way or another, done. --WanYao 17:32, 14 September 2009 (BST)

Alright. But I don't think we can even classify this case here. I am waiting for a sysop to come along on say something, which I hope will happen soon. I don't think Misconduct is even really built for a case like this.--SirArgo ^Talk 17:40, 14 September 2009 (

I've finished the case, he's been demoted. What more could you want? If it's a bold Misconduct at the end of the case, there it is. We don't need to twist the inactivity clause of the Guidelines, based on an unprovable theory, to demote Nubis, when we just did, because he was a security threat. You're overcomplicating this procedure and now you've enticed Iscariot to do so aswell. --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 23:16, 14 September 2009 (BST)

Date

The above debate is precisely why I think a date needs to be established over this whole controversy.

DCC stated on Nubis' talk page that he left the wiki after the Grim controversy. The Grim controversy occurred on 9th October 2008. Now there's no reason to dispute this, and the vandalism case brought by Nubis about DCC stealing his account does not contradict this either. The Dead were pretty much over as a major force by this point, dropping to the level of our normal large hordes. There is no logical reason to dispute this as a date.

If we allow a grace period for Nubis to wrap up what he had been up to on the wiki, say perhaps one month, this would mean the date that would be given in the ruling would be 9th November 2008, and any edit after this time would be considered to be made by DCC. As soon as we have a concrete date given, I see the whole thing working like this:

1. Nubis is found guilty of misconduct (allowing private user data available only to sysops to fall into the hands of another by not ensuring adequate protection of his account).
2. Nubis is warned for this.
3. Given Nubis claims to have left and not touched his account, he is demoted under the inactivity protocol as per standard procedure.
4. A vote after the chosen date is found and brought to A/VB, as we have accepted that this is after DCC has control of the account it is dealt with as a normal sockpuppet account, the Nubis account is banned and DCC receives appropriate escalations.
5. Nubis is permitted to return under a different account (I doubt he'd want the history connected if he is as innocent as he claims) in a dispensation from the normal rules regarding circumventing a ban in consideration of special circumstances. Such a dispensation would need to be in the misconduct ruling with the date to make it clear that this shouldn't be standard A/VB precedent.

What we have then is an insecure account banned and demoted, the perpetrator escalated appropriately under A/VB and the ability of someone whose account was taken from them to return and contribute to the wiki should they choose to do so. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 18:19, 14 September 2009 (BST)

"Now there's no reason to dispute this". Of course there is reason to dispute this. The only evidence for it, is DCC saying so, and he is a lying little shite. He has also said that he's only doing this for revenge upon Nubis, so there is no way we can take his word as gospel, and as it is obvious that he has control over the Nubis account, it what it says can't be trusted either.
The only thing that is clear is that the Nubis account is no longer under securely under the control of the person who was promoted. It is unclear how it happened, and how long it has been going on, nor do I see any way to confirm it if the account ever comes back into the original Nubis' control again.
This makes a misconduct charge on the grounds of negligence the only case proven, however it is obvious that the account can no longer be trusted, so permanent demotion (to be reversed only through a show of community trust) is being applied on the grounds that this hasn't come up before, so sysop best judgment comes into it.
As to all the cases he has ruled on in the past, I don't see how we can invalidate them all, given that there is no clear date that we can trust (other than that given by DCC). Regardless, the Nubis account is only one of multiple sysops, and didn't make decisions alone. They were reviewed by the sysop team, and any decision that wasn't within the guidelines/good judgment would have been invalid. If there are any specific cases which users think were over the top, then they may be more suspect now, and perhaps could be appealed. But we will not be reviewing every single decision made in that timeframe -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 21:44 14 September 2009 (BST)

Not reviewing every vote under this account leads to the the possibilty of the message being given to sock puppeters that if they continue long enough the stuff they've push through won't have those votes struck. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 21:55, 14 September 2009 (BST)

I agree with Iscariot's initial sentiment. Sockpuppets are permabanned. Nubis has acted as a sockpuppet on several votes, therefore he should be permabanned. As Iscariot said, if the real Nubis wants to start an account, they can feel free.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 22:04, 14 September 2009 (BST)

Circumventing a ban on an account is vandalism and would get Nubis an immediate new perma, hence why I called for a provision being made in the misconduct ruling granting a dispensation to allow this for this time. This will only work of course if the ruling sysops believe that Nubis was ignorant of the misuse his account was going under. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 22:10, 14 September 2009 (BST)

Ah yes, but precedent has it that if people have used another account to vote on something, the new account is banned, and the main accoutn gets the vandal escalations of the puppet. Therefore, Nubis should be banned, and DCC should take any Nubis vandal escalations.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 07:33, 15 September 2009 (BST)

I'm backing Boxy on this, demotion is the only solution to this that has been unanimously agreed upon by sysops and has since been cemented into the ruling. This is over, the ruling and punishment has been given to the account in question. I think the sysops consider Nubis a closed case, hence why not many of them have revisited since the ruling. I suggest you take any thoughts of sockpuppetry/banning to A/VB, where it has already been for a week. --DANCEDANCEREVOLUTION-- 09:50, 15 September 2009 (BST)

You are a fucking idiot. The Nubis account is CLEARLY older than the DCC account. Not to mention that the Nubis account easily has the required number of edits to de-escalate any warnings. So, guess that little system of yours won't work here..... -- #99 ^DCC 16:01, 15 September 2009 (BST)

This hasn't been proven to be sock puppetry, Yonnua. The most likely it's a case of an account being stolen/hacked, possibly only days ago -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 10:48 15 September 2009 (BST)

If only days ago, given his contribution pattern, wouldn't the real Nubis have posted from another IP address/account by now? -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 10:59, 15 September 2009 (BST)

Did anyone check to see where the New Nubis is posting from? -- #99 ^DCC 16:01, 15 September 2009 (BST)

Not if he's on vaction -- boxy ^{talk • teh rulz} 11:01 15 September 2009 (BST)

I understand. I was assuming it was confirmed by Nubis' case on a/vb. However, Nubis doesn't say when DCC took over, so even if that's the real Nubis on there, there's no way of telling when. So yeah, demotion would be the only fair thing.--Yonnua Koponen ^{Talk ! Contribs} 15:38, 15 September 2009 (BST)

Wouldn't that be funny if THAT was the hacked Nubis account? -- #99 ^DCC 16:01, 15 September 2009 (BST)

Can we have a moratorium on accepting or being renominated as we did with Grim to prevent this happening every two weeks until the wiki dies? -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 16:36, 15 September 2009 (BST)

Yeah I have to agree here. We can't just close the case as is.--SirArgo ^Talk 16:43, 15 September 2009 (BST)